If
by mholub00
Summary: Clint wakes in the middle of the night, and he's not sure why. Elevators aren't terribly important noises, after all. Or are they? (One-shot)


The sound of the opening elevator door is what wakes Clint Barton that night, though he hasn't really been sleeping, a technique he uses to avoid the nightmares that plague his mind. But living in New York, with car horns and police sirens and screaming people on the streets 24/7, he isn't sure why the elevator has caught his attention. It is the quietest 'ding' and all the way down the hallway, yet it sounds like it is coming from right next to him.

Curious as to why his brain has chosen this particular noise to bring him out of his half-sleep, Clint throws back the sheets and slides out of the bed, pulling on the pair of pants he had thrown haphazardly on the floor a few hours ago. The hallway is silent when he pokes his head out of the door, the lights in everyone else's rooms off for the night because their sleeping patterns aren't interrupted by dreams of dead people and zombies and ever present screams he know belong to her and the red haired girl lying on the ground in a pool of blood, her lips silently prompting one question, "why." A soft glow comes from the kitchen, making that the direction in which he heads. It takes longer than usual as he chooses to maneuver around the spots on the floor that he knows creak. Better not to give a warning to whoever is there, just in case.

In the entrance to the lounge area, he freezes. Across the room, she stands by the sink, one dim light on overhead and the moonlight from the nearby window highlighting her face. Clint takes a second to just watch her, the way her hands are clenched in fists, shoulders hunched, and she stands with more weight on her left foot than her right, before he actually takes to wondering why she is here. Last he has heard she isn't due to be back until the next week, having left a month previous for a job in Argentina. Forgetting his plan of secrecy, Clint steps onto a particularly creaky portion of the floor. In the two second he takes to recover, she spins around and cocks her hand gun, pointing it at his chest. For a brief moment he sees her face as it is when he closes his eyes, bloody and beaten, but as the vision fades, he realizes he isn't that far off. A cut just under her temple has left blood dried down the side of her face and the shoulder of her jacket is torn to reveal several red and raw scrapes, like she's dragged herself across concrete. One cheek houses a black and blue bruise he figures had been worse minutes before.

"Nat," he says, holding up his hands defensively. She visibly relaxes at the sound of her own name, lowering the gun and collapsing against the counter. A look of worry flashes across his face at her silence, the absence of any sort of sarcastic remark, or any words at all, setting him on edge. It isn't like her. He takes a few steps forward and her gaze never leaves his face. "You're back," he says, more as a statement than a question, and yawns.

"Things went south," she explains. "When the man you're targeted to kill suddenly decides he wants to use a military base to test his new explosive virus shit- I'm still not really sure what it is- then, well, action must be taken. And when in doubt–"

"Blow it up," he says, finishing his own motto with a slight smile. Leave it to Natasha to take his words to heart. "Well, I'm glad you're back." He's closed the space between them and stops a foot away, looking her up and down. His brow furrows as he frowns. "Tash, are you alright?" She nods, stifling a yawn of her own with bruised knuckles and a scratched hand, but her eyes betray her. There's pain buried in the green, a look he's seen a million times before.

"Just tired," she says, smiling weakly. "I'm not sure if sleep has ever sounded this good before since…" she trails off, her head tilting slightly and the pain in her gaze intensifies for a second. Clint knows what she means, seeing as she hasn't slept any better than him since May, possibly worse, though she's worrying him now. Secrets aren't unusual for her, nor are late night arrivals, and the weird tension he feels in her voice is cue he knows well for the few times he's heard it. It's the way she unknowingly hints that she's hurt, more when she doesn't want to tell anyone than anything else. "I'm just going to head off then," she says and turns away from him. "Night."

"Hey," he says, catching her around the waist as she begins to limp away. But it's more than the unspoken answer he's looking for. Her eyes get wide as she looks back at him, and he stares first at her, then at his now crimson red blood covered arm, and back at her. "Natasha…"

She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a step back, shaking her head. One arm crosses over her stomach as if she's attempting to hide the now darkening stain on the fabric. "No, I'm fine," she says. "Just go back to bed."

"No. Tasha–"

"Please, Clint."

"No Natasha." She closes her mouth at the seriousness of his tone, realizing he's going to be adamant about this. She just shakes her head and stares at the floor, willing herself not to collapse. She is aware of his soft hands as he pulls the gun from her grip and sets it on the counter. His calloused fingers run down her cheek and she grabs his wrist. "Tasha, let me help you."

Clint watches as she begins to nod and her gaze stays on his face as she pulls up her shirt enough to reveal the raw skin and parallel gashes, leaving her stomach looking as if it was clawed by a beast. "He…he had this weapon. Like Logan's claws, but not- I've never seen anything like it. They aren't deep enough for stitches."

"Just a flesh wound, right?" He smiles sadly, a look she returns as he quotes one of her favorite movies.

"Bleeding stumps are flesh wounds, Clint. This is barely a scratch." She lets her shirt drop and takes a deep breath. "I'm fine, really."

He is still wondering how Fury would've let her out of his sight with something like that, until he sees the hint of pleading in her eyes that tells him Fury doesn't know. And the dark warning also present reminds him Fury won't be finding out. "Technically speaking, my job description says I'm responsible for taking care of you. Please. Let me help," he repeats. "Even if the sky falls in, remember?"

A pained smile plays on her lips as he says that, their whispered words for before a battle. Together they fight, together they kill, and together they die, and they are Clint and Natasha, Natasha and Clint, down to the last second of the world, the final breath, and not even the fear in her eyes since New York, the fear that can always be found if he looks deep enough past her mask, can change that.

After a second she nods again and he puts her arms over her shoulder, helping her into her bathroom. An hour passes as he scrubs various parts of her skin clean of blood, as he's done so many times before in hotel rooms across the world. Bandages and gauze appear from stashes in cabinets and he wraps them steadily and tightly around her abdomen. Her eyes are closed when he finishes, her breathing slow, and he lifts her into his arms and carries her into the bedroom, tucking her under the sheets with a whispered goodnight. She grabs his hand as he turns to leave.

"Thanks," she breathes as sleep takes her once more.

"It's my pleasure. Love you, Nat," he says more to himself, leaning down and kissing her forehead lightly before slipping out of her room.

Alone in the silence filled with her screams, darkness presses on all sides, threatening to pull him under to the world of fear, and thoughts of what could happen if only once the bruises and blood go unnoticed, if only once he's too late, fill his head. Her own stubbornness could be her death and, alone in his nightmares, that he realizes how much she means to him, how she's not the rock or the anchor but the gravity that holds him to the ground when he feels like he could slip off the very face of the earth, and he fears losing her that much more.

In his private Hell, he allows himself to be weak, and he cries.


End file.
